This invention relates to heating and air conditioning systems, and is more particularly directed towards fan coil units for heat pump and/or air conditioning systems having separate fan coil type heat exchangers.
The invention is more specifically concerned with an improved condensate drain pan employed with the evaporator fan coil unit of an air conditioner or heat pump. The improvement of this invention facilitates field installation by permitting field-adjustment of the drain pan to accommodate drainage of condensate.
In air conditioning units, condensate which occurs in the evaporator coil must be drained away and dispensed with. Current indoor air quality standards require that air handling unit condensate pans shall be designed for self-drainage to preclude build up of microbial slime. This requires that the condensate drain pan be pitched to one side or the other, i.e., towards the left or right side of the fan coil unit. The condensate then should pass through drain piping into a field drain.
A problem arises in factory pre-pitched drain pans. By pitching the drain pans to one side, the field drain pan is dedicated to a specific side of the fan coil unit. This limits some applications because of a lack of access to a drain, or because excess piping may be required simply to carry the condensate discharge around the fan coil unit to the field drain. This is further complicated by the fact that the installer does not know until installation which end of the unit is closer to the field drain. This makes it impractical even to provide separate left- and fight-drain fan coil units.